


between dreams

by elisu



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Dreams, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23800579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisu/pseuds/elisu
Summary: And Chenle cups his face with his hands, elbows resting on the balcony’s parapet, and watches as his dream joins all the others in floating up and away to meet the stars.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Zhong Chen Le
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43
Collections: nono birthday bash





	between dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moltenvintagelacedress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moltenvintagelacedress/gifts).



> ▶ Number One - LOONA  
> ▶ 눈 맞추고, 손 맞대고 Eyes Locked, Hands Locked - Red Velvet  
> ▶ 21:29 - TWICE  
> ▶ 白日梦 Day Dream - NCT

There’s a city up there somewhere, hidden up in the sky, one that no mortal has ever visited before. A prosperous metropolis made up of towers and turrets and castles of gold. All clouds doused with ambition, and strange, sphere-shaped flowers that grow in abundance amidst them. The stars look so much closer here, almost as if you could reach out a hand to touch them. 

Jeno attempts to, and is immediately met with the most peculiar fizzing sensation that flows through his entire body as his hand meets the star. Upon contact with the celestial object, the ground rumbles gently under his feet and the boy turns around to see his surroundings slowly fade away. 

An alarm buzzes loudly and Jeno is woken abruptly from his dream. His dark eyes flutter open, and are welcomed mercilessly by the first rays of morning sun. Reaching his arms out to stretch as he sits up in bed, he’s greeted by one of his cats, whose paws pad over his legs as it makes his way to the other side of the bed and rubs its head against Jeno’s side. He grins and picks it up, kisses its nose, then puts it down again when he climbs out of his sheets to get ready for school. 

Today is one of those in-between days. The weather is just fine; chilly enough to wear your school sweater but not too unforgiving if you forget to. Jeno buttons his white shirt, cocks his head to the side at himself in the mirror, confused, then undoes and does the buttons all over again when he realises they’re crooked. He’s in the middle of brushing his hair when he’s hit with an intense feeling of unease. The feeling’s been there since he first woke up, but now it’s stronger than ever and one he can only identify as guilt. That’s funny, Jeno thinks. Everything seems fine. He decides to ignore it. With one last check of his desk, Jeno swings his schoolbag over his shoulder and heads downstairs for breakfast. 

“Sleep well?” his older brother asks as Jeno enters the kitchen. Doyoung is at the stove, currently, cooking what smells like fried rice. “Yeah! Do you not have uni today, hyung?” Jeno pipes, taking a seat at one of the bar stools and setting his bag on the floor.  
“My morning class got cancelled last minute, so I don’t have to be on campus until two,”  
“Why?”  
Doyoung turns around and gives him a look. “What do you mean why?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“I hope you’re not like this at school,” Doyoung muses, then places the bowl of steaming hot rice on the counter.  
Jeno’s eyes light up at the sight of food, “Thanks hyung.” 

The commute to school is interesting as always. Jeno’s lucky that his bus is never packed, so he sits at the same seat everyday and watches as his neighbourhood and its inhabitants wakes to begin going about their day. There’s a certain beauty in the mundane, a sense of comfort in the constants. Jeno thinks that although there’s a routine to his every day, no two mornings are exactly the same. Take this one, for example. The businessman that sits at the back and gets off three stops before his own is wearing a blue tie today, instead of his usual red one. Jeno wonders if it’s because it’s in the wash, or if perhaps the man has misplaced it. The elderly lady that lives around the corner and owns six ginger cats is opening her letterbox to find a package. Whatever could it be? 

And that’s how Jeno’s morning usually is. A section of calm before the chaos of high school commences every weekday. He enjoys it.

A dream is a wish your heart makes

Whenever you close your eyes to consciousness, you open them in a dream. Your thoughts, feelings, greatest desires, are all let free the moment your consciousness loses its hold over them. Hence, entering the dream state rids the mind of all regulations, enforced morals, and ‘shoulds’. In their place blooms truth. Catharsis. Raw self that has nowhere to hide behind and paces around your mind until you are forced to look it in the eye. Whether this, in itself, is a good or a bad thing? Well, that’s up to you to decide. 

A clock strikes ten somewhere in the centre of the city. A boy with a square jaw and hair the colour of starlight wakes in his tower, surprised. What’s a high school student like Jeno doing sleeping so early? The boy supposes it’s not a bad kind of surprise. Humans need their sleep, he knows this more than anyone. 

And like that, he gets to work. 

Zhong Chenle’s job is no different from the other dream makers’ in this city, in the sense that everyone else’s is different too. He changes quickly into his work clothes: a thin white blouse and long black pants, and gives his hair a gentle comb through before making his way to the balcony. 

Up here in the sky the night air is especially chilly, especially with an outfit like this one on, but Chenle’s gotten used to it by now. The slight shivers that come with the gentle breeze remind him of excitement more than anything, and he’s grown fond of the feeling. 

There’s a desk located in the middle of the semi-circular balcony, one made of the same pearly-hued stone as the floor and pillars and pathways that make up this city. It’s got a drawer filled to the brim with rice paper, and a set of writing tools on its surface. Chenle makes his way to the table and gets to work, folding a sheet of rice paper into the shape of a round, palm-sized lantern. He picks up a brush and dips it in the pot of dark ink, then thinks for a while, before writing on the surface of the lantern: Whatever your heart wishes. He waits for a moment for the script to dry, fanning at it with his soft, pale fingers, then picks it up and makes his way to the edge of the balcony. 

The parapet is almost overgrown with vines of the same flowers that grow all over the city. They snake in and around the gaps between white marble fencing, spherical blossoms shining like dim light bulbs. Chenle picks one, and places it in the lantern. Rolling the flower around inside the rice paper with both hands, he watches as the golden petals produce a bright golden light and softly begin to hum the familiar lullaby-esque song. Once he feels the lantern growing lighter and lighter in his hands, he holds it out over the edge of the balcony and with the help of a gentle push, the vessel floats out of his hands and up, up, up into the sky. 

And Chenle cups his face with his hands, elbows resting on the balcony’s parapet, and watches as his dream joins all the others in floating up and away to meet the stars. 

It is common for people in their youth to want to escape their everyday lives. The idea of something different, something new, something so out of reach but accessible by the mere impulsive decision to leave everything you’ve ever known behind for the possibility of something more, is so terrifyingly enticing. 

As satisfied, as content, as happy, even, as you are with the way you live, there is a voice inside of you. One that whispers curiosity into your eyes, wonders into your mind. Surely, somewhere out there there is something worth running away for.

Chenle does get lonely, occasionally. Would go so far to maybe even say that he’s unhappy every now and then. What else is there to do when you’re nineteen, surrounded by people and yet so isolated? What else is there to feel, when paradise is everything you’ve ever known? 

In this place where everything is so perfect, he makes mistakes sometimes. 

When Jeno awakes, he finds himself in a place that he recognises immediately: the place from his last dream. 

Everything is the same as when he last saw it. Delicate, without flaws, and mysteriously beautiful. As he looks around to once again admire his surroundings, he can’t help but feel a sense of strong…relaxation. Of peaceful happiness. As if all his problems in the real world have melted away. 

Even the ground beneath his feet manages to be effortlessly exquisite. The path he’s stepping on seems to be made of a milky, iridescent material that twinkles ever-so-subtly in the gleam of the constellations above. It’s lined by full, white clouds on either side, and the curious light bulb-like flowers that emit a soft champagne glow. 

Jeno tilts his head towards the sky, and his eyes widen in surprise as they find themselves meeting those of another boy’s. 

And he looks like nothing he’s ever seen before. Ethereal, like some sort of angelic being, and too pretty to be human. The starlight dances over his features, and Jeno finds himself unable to move when his rose-coloured lips part to show two rows of impossibly perfect teeth. Then the boy turns around and disappears. 

Jeno stands, then, too irrevocably dumbfounded to process what he’s just seen. Is he hallucinating? Who was that? 

Then the door to one of the golden towers swings open, and the boy is there again, with the same knowing smile on his face. And he’s running towards Jeno, who is comically discombobulated with feet seemingly concreted to the floor. 

Jeno reckons he’s definitely gone mad at this point, because whatever figment of his imagination that this boy is is standing in front of him, grabbing his hands and excitedly saying, “so you’re Jeno?”

And Jeno doesn’t know what to say so he just nods. 

“You’re so pretty! No wonder why you’re such a Casanova in your dreams.”

Casa- now he’s really flustered. 

“Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Zhong Chenle, your resident dream maker. I assign you your dreams! And it is very exciting to meet you.”

Jeno is not quite sure what all of this means. “I…” he starts, then closes his mouth again, brow furrowed in a perplexed expression. 

Chenle lets out a charming, high-pitched laugh. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. Come upstairs! I’ll show you how it’s done. We’ve got…” he pulls out a small gold hourglass from under his shirt, the chain glinting in the starlight, “About eight hours in dream time. Better get a move on!”

And with that, Jeno finds himself getting pulled up a tall spiral staircase, feet moving on their own accord as he wonders what he’s gotten himself into. This is not what he expected at all. 

Jeno finds himself smiling for the entirety of the next day. His classmate, Donghyuck, catches him doing so, and asks if he’s got a new girl he’s been talking to. “Very funny, Hyuck,” he replies with a good-natured smirk. “But please don’t assume it’s a girl. I’ll have you know that everyone falls for my good looks, whether they’re a girl, a boy or neither.”  
Donghyuck pretends to swoon. “Marry me, oppar. I’m a girl, boy, AND neither and I’ve fallen for your good looks. Please pick me,” he croons, and the two are in fits of giggles. 

His newfound happiness doesn’t fade when the teacher exasperatedly asks for the two to sit apart from each other and please stop talking it is disrupting the rest of the class from their learning and if this keeps up parents will have to be contacted. The smile soon returns to his face as he sits down again, across the room from Donghyuck, and tries to concentrate on his teacher revising circular functions on the whiteboard. 

He fails, obviously, and gives in to his memory, letting his mind stray to thinking about the way he felt when Chenle’s eyes were on him and only him. When they lit up while he was showing him around his house and the outside balcony. When the two of them sat side by side on the edge of the balcony, saying nothing and counting stars. 

His daze is broken by the ring of the shrill school bell, and the rustle of books and papers as the students rush to pack up and file out of the classroom. He soon follows suit, and joins the cluster of students trying to get to their lockers, then out of the corridors as quickly as possible. 

Luckily, his locker is right outside his maths classroom. In no time at all, Jeno is on the bus again, a Red Velvet song playing in his earbuds. At home he’ll feed his cat, then try to figure out what he missed out on while daydreaming in class. It’s been a long day.

Chenle is waiting at the balcony, once again, for Jeno to return. It’s cold for real this time, but he knows Jeno will show up any minute now. He shivers, rubbing at his crossed arms as the wind wraps him in an icy embrace. 

And then all goes warm as the pretty boy walks into his line of sight. 

The first time Chenle fell in love, it was with a dancer. He was a sixteen-year-old, had bright eyes and a heart of pure gold. He was talented, hardworking, and possessed a tunnel-vision sense of ambition that Chenle felt himself become infatuated with. The two boys never met. The boy was far too motivated, far too focused on his established dreams to let himself wander too far from his goals. And he was human. 

So when Chenle’s eighty day contract ended, he moved on. And he let the dancer remain a memory he never got to touch. 

“Who are you, really?” Jeno whispers, a cup of sweet tea warm between his hands as he sits comfortably on Chenle’s rug. There’s a slight pause, then he speaks again, slightly louder. “No. Don’t tell me. This is a dream, after all.”  
Not knowing how to reply, Chenle nods. “Drink your tea before it gets cold.” 

Jeno doesn’t know how to come to terms with the fact that he’s fallen in love with someone that doesn’t exist. He has no idea how to feel, how to act. So, like always, he just waits and sees what happens. 

“Does it ever get lonely up here?” 

The two boys are out on the balcony with a blanket laid out for them to sit on. It’s a warm night and there are clouds out, blocking the stars, but the dozens of lanterns floating up into the sky make for a good scenery nonetheless. 

“Does it ever get lonely on Earth?”

Chenle doesn’t hear his answer. He’s too busy watching as the glow of the lanterns reflect like galaxies in Jeno’s eyes. Watching his lips come together and then apart again as he speaks, too distracted to hear what’s coming out of them. Jeno’s eyes look like crescent moons when he smiles, Chenle realises. 

“Hello? Did you hear me?” Jeno pouts, and Chenle wants to die.  
“No,” he admits.  
“I said, you didn’t answer my question.”

It’s because he doesn’t know how to. There’s silence, and then, “I do, actually,” he reaches a hair out to play with Jeno’s hair, “I get very lonely up here. It’s all the same, you know. Write a dream, watch someone else play it out for you, then write another one for another person to do. It’s like I’m always feeling things through stories. Nothing ever happens to me. And I guess that’s my job. I guess that’s all I’m here for, but I do wonder if I would be happier living life through my own eyes if that makes sense.”

And now Jeno doesn’t know what to say. 

The dream city is one that has rules. One must always stay the same. If someone goes, someone else must replace them. It’s the way it’s always been.

Jeno is kind. He is curious. Considerate. Always asks Chenle what’s wrong whenever his smile doesn’t hold as long as he tries to make it last. Maybe Jeno has never known hurt in his life, because the when he looks at him, Chenle only sees true joy and hope in his eyes. Chenle has. He’s loved humans, known goodbyes, but at the end of the day he knows that leaving the city behind holds damage that outweighs any type of emotional attachment. 

So when he makes a trip to the city centre, contract in hand, he’s ready to tell the truth. 

What he doesn’t expect, though, is the mayor to smile at him warmly upon seeing the piece of paper, and say, “Go, Chenle. You don’t want this job anymore.”

He’s shocked, to say the least. “I’m sorry, so that means…”  
“When does this contract end?”  
“Tomorrow, miss. It ends tomorrow morning.”  
“Then pack your bags, you’ll leave then. I’ll organise to find a replacement.” Replacement?

Chenle nods, then bows, then turns around to make his way back home. 

The moment he’s out of the office it finally hits him. He’s going away. Forever. Leaving the world as he knows it. But what did the mayor mean, when she said she’d organise to find a replacement? Who would it be? 

Jeno doesn’t dream that night. Instead, he hears a familiar voice, whispering. The whispers are inaudible for a while, then he starts to make out words. “I’ll find a way to see you when you’re awake,” he hears, “just wait for me.”

Waiting. What else is there to do, when your universe is so much bigger than you thought, and you have so much less control over it than you thought you did?

Another day passes, another dreamless night. Jeno is starting to think that maybe he should forget about his dreams, move on. 

It’s slightly dysphoric, how he’s feeling right now. Jeno’s never been this caught up over something that doesn’t exist before. He stares out the bus window, focusing on the way the raindrops roll down the glass in streaks, then pool at the ledge like an eyelid holding tears. If he squints, the little beads of water look like stars. The, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a familiar head of starlight-coloured hair. And he understands. 

He rushes to press the stop button on the bus pole, then runs outside into the rain to meet the boy.

And he doesn’t care to ask for an explanation or an introduction because he, knows, just knows, and throws his arms around Chenle in a tight embrace. “Jeno I-,” Chenle begins, then stops in horror, as Jeno finds himself being lifted off the ground. Chenle scrambles to grab both of his hands in his, only to get lifted up himself. “What’s happening, Chenle?” Jeno says, distressed. 

“I…I’m so sorry Jeno,” Chenle says, equally scared and unable to look him in the eye.  
“Chenle, I said what’s happening,” he’s close to panicking.  
“I don’t know. I think we’re going back to the city.”  
“I’m so sorry, Jeno. I didn’t know this would happen…I-,”  
“Chenle, why are you here in the first place?”  
“I thought…I thought we could stay on Earth together. I didn’t know you would be my replacement…”  
“Your what, now?” 

They’re in the clouds at this point. Jeno’s schoolbag is probably getting soaked back there on the pavement and he’s very late for class. The way he’s looking at Chenle makes him want to cry, because he’s never seen Jeno look so scared. Their hands are locked so tightly that their knuckles are turning white and they’re both shaking in a way that has nothing to do with the rising altitudes and rapidly decreasing temperatures. 

“Did you not want to leave?” the mayor’s voice is knowing and she’s got a tantalisingly calm smile on her face. When Chenle says nothing, she chuckles. “Quite frankly, what you’ve done is punishable by law. Whether you want to leave or not is not a matter of your choice.”

There’s a silence, and there’s his last chance. 

“Why can’t we both go?” he manages to choke out, hands shaking behind his back. 

“You know that’s not how it works. You both stay here, or one of you leaves. And it must be you.”

“So, you wanted an escape?” 

What else is there to say, when a stranger in front of you already knows your answer?

She continues. “Well I think you’d make an excellent dream maker. From this contract alone I can tell you’d enjoy the job, and from this experience you now know not to do the wrong thing.”

Chenle is unhappy, Jeno knows. He looks over at him, standing by his side with his eyes trained on the floor in shame. Turns his head and says, gently, “Go. Go live, Chenle. I’ll see you in dreams.” And Chenle starts to cry, then and there. 

Chenle insists they talk before signing the contract. Jeno thinks that’s valid. He doesn’t look angry, or upset, just hurt and confused. Chenle thinks that’s worse.  
“They erase your memories. You’ll lose your entire life down there. You don’t want that.”  
“Don’t tell me what I don’t want, Chenle. I don’t want you to stay unhappy up here.”  
“You’ll become lonely, too.”  
“But the lady up there-,”  
“Your dreams are within your control, Jeno. Don’t listen to the lady up there. We’ll leave this place together. Run away with me.” Chenle is pleading at this point. 

Jeno has always been one to accept his fate. Never passively, but in such a way that he’s always been okay with forces of the universe coming together to form his path, sometimes in ways that are out of his control. Things exist in patterns. Spheres. The road ahead that’s laid out in front of him is only half made up of his own decisions. 

What has Jeno ever done to deserve a love so beautiful, so perfect as the one he feels for Chenle? Chenle was unhappy with his life. Jeno was not. Suffering is a natural part of the big picture, and maybe it’s his turn to experience it. 

Jeno’s made up his mind. 

He’s standing in Chenle’s clothes, unsigned contract in hand, and still shocked by how fast this has all happened. “Lee Jeno, do you hereby agree to serve as one of our kind, until the end of time?”

A city built on clouds, and borders that know no walls. No physical barriers at the very edge, nor the need for one. For why would anyone possibly want to leave? 

All of a sudden, Chenle comes bursting in. Before Jeno can process what’s happening, he’s being grabbed by the hand, pulled out of the office at lightning speed. And he’s sprinting too, just to keep up with Chenle. Everything is a blur. Jeno can’t remember the last time he’s felt this out of control. 

They’re both out of breath by the time they’ve reached the very edge of the island and Jeno is panting, looking at Chenle painedly like he just wants some fucking answers. “I just want some fucking answers,” he manages to get out between heavy breaths. Chenle collects himself, then stands up straight again, meeting his eyes properly. 

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t need to. With a nod of a head towards what’s beyond, with the hold of a hand, with trembling certainty, Jeno understands. 

Prior to this Jeno didn’t think that he’d ever find himself suspended in the space between dreams and reality, the sky and its Earth if not more than once in his lifetime. Prior to this Jeno never thought that it was possible to stand on a cloud, if not jump off of one in an act of rebellion and float down ever-so-gracefully, eyes locked, hands locked with an angel. 

He would be surprised. 

It’s raining, still, back on Earth. 

Just as he dreaded it would be, Jeno’s schoolbag lies soaked through on the pavement, forlorn and rather cold. Jeno has no doubt that his textbooks are ruined. It’s only for a matter of seconds that the two of them are standing there, very much alive after having fallen from the sky and hands still gripping each other long after they land on the ground, but it might as well be hours. Days. Wonder has no time frame. 

The world all around them takes no notice while they stand on the concrete, unspeaking, staring at each other as though they have all the time in the world. Chenle’s hands are warm in Jeno’s. It’s outrageous, Jeno thinks, that he’s soaked to the skin, hair a mess, and he still looks as ethereal as he did on that first night.

Chenle takes a step closer. Jeno catches himself holding his breath.

Jeno’s eyes widen. Chenle watches the way his pupils dilate, the way the rain runs down his cheekbones and drips off his jaw. He reaches out a hand to hold Jeno’s face. Jeno responds accordingly. 

He lives in these moments, between dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks Kaz <3


End file.
